BRIAN MURPHY takes a nostalgic trip through military history by leafing through a slim guidebook: 'Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq during World War II.'
One of the big topics in the guidebook: cultural sensitivity. (AP Photo/The University of Chicago Press)
A pocket-size military guidebook, revisited (and republished). (AP Photo/Courtesy of The University of Chicago Press)
OK, soldier, listen up: You have been ordered to Iraq. That's pronounced i-RAHK.
American success over there may well depend on whether you can sway average Iraqis to our side. But never underestimate the enemy. He is a first-class fighting man, highly skilled in guerrilla warfare.
No surprise there after more than four years and U.S. military deaths moving toward 3,600.
But that advice -- recounted nearly verbatim -- came from the Pentagon 64 years ago at the height of World War II.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes," wrote Lt. Col. John A. Nagl in the forward to the pocket-size military guidebook being reprinted by The University of Chicago Press.
To read the 44-page booklet -- "Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II" -- is to understand just how right he is.
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A FAMILIAR TONE
Some sections of the guidebook are mirror images of the current U.S. military strategies against Iraqi insurgents: Make contacts among ordinary Iraqis, gain the backing of powerful tribal and clan leaders, try to persuade Iraqi guerrillas to become temporary comrades in arms against common foes.
"If he is your friend, he can be a staunch and valuable ally," the U.S. Army said back in 1943. "If he should happen to be your enemy -- look out!"
For generations, the little manual -- and others like it for dozens of different countries -- sat mostly forgotten in the files of libraries and military archives. Then in 2004, the Bodleian Library at Oxford University stumbled across a 1942 guide for American G.I.s serving in Britain. It was a huge hit for its Yankee-centric observations -- such as that the "British don't know how to make a good cup of coffee" -- and sold more than 100,000 copies.
"We said, 'Wouldn't it be cool if there was one for Iraq?'" said Carol Kasper, marketing director The University of Chicago Press, which has an agreement to distribute Bodleian titles in the United States.
"They said, 'Well, there is.'"
The Bodleian didn't want to publish it. So Chicago snatched it up. It is scheduled to hit bookstores in August.
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PEARLS OF WISDOM
Besides a few tips about the Iraqi fighting prowess, the pages are mostly a Roosevelt-era mix of Lonely Planet meets "Innocents Abroad." It's all taken now with a knowing nod from the current armchair experts on Iraq after years of mulling the military quagmire and scandals such as the Abu Ghraib prison abuses.
The Iraq-bound troops back then were given such pearls as:
-- Iraq is hot and nothing like the romantic visions of the mysterious East. "You will smell and feel a lot of things the movies don't warn you about."
-- "Moslems pay much attention to good manners." (The book uses the now-outdated spelling "Moslem" throughout.)
-- "Many of the Iraqis believe in the 'evil eye.'" Be particularly careful, the soldiers were told, about taking photos. "Some of the Iraqis think that the lens of a camera is an 'evil eye,' and you will make enemies by taking close-up snapshots and possibly wind up with a knife in your back."
-- "Toilets such as those in America are very scarce."
-- "Above all never strike an Iraqi."
-- "If you see two grown men walking hand in hand, ignore it. They are not 'queer.'"
-- Non-Muslim servicemen should stay away from mosques and avoid disturbances during the daily prayer times. "And above all do not make fun of him. Respect his religion as he will respect yours."
"In some ways it's very humorous," said Kasper, "but in another it's really heart-wrenching when you see these basic precepts of human interaction being violated."
The manual even tries to pre-empt some extracurricular urges.
"To repeat -- don't make a pass at any Moslem woman or there will be trouble," it notes. "Anyway, it won't get you anywhere. Prostitutes do not walk the streets but live in special quarters in the city."
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DOING YOUR HOMEWORK
In the end, not many U.S. soldiers had to study these bits of taxpayer-funded wisdom.
Only a very small U.S. contingent was stationed in Iraq -- no more than several hundred in transport and construction units -- as part of the more than 30,000 U.S. soldiers that passed through the Persian Gulf Command and its predecessors.
Iraq at the time was mostly a British affair. London sent in troops in 1941 and eventually toppled the Iraqi government, which the West feared was growing too sympathetic to Germany.
The decision to sweep out another Iraqi regime -- this time because of post-9/11 anxieties -- threw open the doors for a sectarian meltdown and the biggest Pentagon quagmire since Vietnam.
Many wonder if things could have been different if the Bush administration did some homework on Iraq before sending in troops. But it's the soldiers who now get a crash course on Iraq -- or what some in the military call, in rather old-school fashion, "the sandbox."
"It's a long way from giving the soldiers a booklet and a movie and sending them on their way," said Tanja Linton, a spokeswoman at Arizona's Fort Huachuca, the base for the U.S. Army Intelligence Center.
The center runs courses and seminars for cultural sensitivity in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. It also sends out mobile "cultural awareness" teams to U.S.-based units preparing to deploy. Other training sessions are held on Iraq's doorstep, including a more than two-week course in Kuwait for 300 soldiers this spring on Arab society -- including immersion in Arabic.
In March, Fort Huachuca hosted a cultural awareness "summit" that included the Iraqi ambassador to the United States and the son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Linton said. Another such gathering is planned for March 2008 -- an indication that Iraq will remain on the army's agenda for many years to come.
"Years from now," the 1943 manual reads, "you'll be telling your children and maybe their grandchildren stories beginning, 'Now when I was in Baghdad ...'"
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asap contributor Brian Murphy is the Iraq editor at the AP's global headquarters in New York.
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